Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Epiphany

I had an epiphany the other day.

It wasn't one of those life-changing epiphanies, just a tiny one, and one that will probably make you wonder that I hadn't realized it before, but here it is, for what it's worth:

Just because I've had something for a long time doesn't mean I have to have it forever.

This came to me when I was culling my files at work. I've already done a quick run-through, getting rid of obviously unneeded material (exams from years ago, thank-you notes for writing recommendations from students whose names don't ring a bell, ancient grade rosters), and now I'm doing round two, where I look at and consider the papers before consigning them to the recycling bin.

When I moved to Nashville, I had every intention of putting in my stint as a non-tenure-track lecturer until I had finished my dissertation, and then I would go on the market and seek a tenure-track position. So I brought with me all the material that would help me in that quest: class notes, exams and papers I'd written, lots of books.

Along the way, I discovered that despite the negatives (higher work load, lower salary, a dismissive attitude from certain members of the faculty), I really liked not entering the tenure race, and the importance of all that stuff has disappeared.

Still, it's hard to throw out a paper that a professor thought was worth publishing, or an exam that I was particularly proud of, or the meticulous note-cards from my Italian Linguistics class, such as:


Semiprotonics

vowel + velar (k, g)/nasal (m, n) + o/a: first vowel must be a
  • pampinu(m) > pampano
  • selinu(m) > sedano
  • Hieronymu(m) > Gerolamo

I must have known what it meant sometime and I took such care over it. Can I just toss it?

That's when the epiphany came.

If I'd known what direction my life was going to take 28 years ago, I would happily have tossed that card. At that point it had no sentimental value. I haven't looked at those cards in the 28 years I've been in this office except to open the note-card box to remind myself what was in it. Just because I've had it all these years doesn't mean it has any worth.

(But I still haven't tossed that card.)

6 comments:

  1. So timely are these words, so true are these words.

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  2. Tracy,
    I so relate to this. I can get very sentimental about things from my past, little things that represent success I experienced or dreams I used to have. Often they mean nothing in my current place in life, but remind me of who I used to be. I'm really trying to live in the present.
    Great seeing you in NYC, by the way. :)

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  3. I'll remember that, Mary--by tossing out those relics, I'll be living in the present.
    Great seeing you, too!

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  4. Letting go of those is kind of like letting go of the past, and that's so hard to do. I also want to de-clutter my life, though, and that means getting rid of many such things. Good luck, Tracy.

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  5. I bought a Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner and I've scanned everything I'm attached to that I don't really need. That includes my Latin vocabulary flashcards, also meticulously created. After I finished, my son developed an interest in Latin. I stuck all the PDFs in one place online, gave him the password, and he's using them. I'm in favor of continuously evaluating what you really need, but I also recognize that if I did all that work decades earlier, it's hard to throw it away. Scanning allows me to get rid of the paper, make as many copies as I want of the resulting PDFs, and have less clutter. Maybe someday I'll get rid of the PDFs as well; maybe not.

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  6. I think I'm often more attached to the physical object than the information it contains, unfortunately! But I've found good homes for a lot of it.

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